They took away his future, and he wants it back.

In an overpopulated world, one youthful transgression in the past can be enough to rip away all hope for the future. Captain Tyris Bekkert will do anything to get back to the life he deserves, including flying out in search of a resource-rich planet long lost from the star charts. But instead of returning a hero, Tyris is shipwrecked, with no hope for rescue. Until he finds the survivors, and a girl willing to risk it all to help him.

She’ll do anything it takes to get out.

Forced by law to leave her best friend when their relationship failed to produce a child, Marlee is desperate to get out from under the Council’s thumb by any means necessary. Even if it means lying to everyone she’s ever known and telling them she’s doing her part to save their dwindling numbers with the attractive off-worlder who has promised her escape if she’ll help him fix his ship.

To stay together, they need the one thing neither can have: a baby.

With a harsh winter coming, Marlee and Tyris will need to rely on each other, and on the community, to survive. But the long, cold months and the weight of their deception wears down the barriers around their hearts, even as Marlee’s people seem strangely unwilling to take the chance at rescue Tyris offers. When fiction becomes fact, and they admit they can’t live without each other, escape becomes the only way they can stay together.